accretion

Borrowed from Latin accrētiō, from ad (“to”) + crēscō (“grow”). First attested in the 1610s. Compare crescent, increase, accrue, and so on.

• (US) enPR: ŭkrēshən, IPA^(key): /ə.ˈkɹi.ʃən/
• Rhymes: -iːʃən

accretion (countable and uncountable, plural accretions)

1. The act of increasing by natural growth; especially the increase of organic bodies by the internal accession of parts; organic growth.
   • 1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, chapter I, in The House Behind the Cedars:

     There might have been a slight accretion of the moss and lichen on the shingled roof.

2. The act of increasing, or the matter added, by an accession of parts externally; an extraneous addition

   an accretion of earth

   A mineral ... augments not by growth, but by accretion.

   • To strip off all the subordinate parts of his as a later accretion - George Cornewall Lewis
3. Something added externally to promote growth the external growth of an item.
4. Concretion; coherence of separate particles

   the accretion of particles so as to form a solid mass

5. (biology) A growing together of parts naturally separate, as of the fingers or toes.
6. (geology) The gradual increase of land by deposition of water-borne sediment.
7. (law) The adhering of property to something else, by which the owner of one thing becomes possessed of a right to another; generally, gain of land by the washing up of sand or sail from the sea or a river, or by a gradual recession of the water from the usual watermark.
8. (law) Gain to an heir or legatee; failure of a coheir to the same succession, or a co-legatee of the same thing, to take his share percentage.

• growth

• decay
• erosion
• attrition

• co-accretion

• accretion disk
• accrete

• accretion in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

• anorectic